“Living fire begets cold, impotent ash” (Achebe 153). Okonkwo has demonstrated a great changed throughout Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart. His reactions to the white missionaries reflect on his stern and tough character they will lead to his demise. Okonkwo once was a strong man but his distracted state of mind slowly deteriorated the character he once was. In the Things Fall Apart, a conflict between cultures takes place, with the main character Okonkwo's village being overrun by white Christian missionaries whom are seeking to bring change throughout the tribe and convert the Ibo people. Many people become fond of the new religion's authenticity over time, but Okonkwo is a single-minded warrior at heart, and his stubbornness to …show more content…
However, the Ibo people who live in Umuofia still have a very strong sense of culture. The people of Umuofia go to the Oracle for advice and having “egwugwu” (people dressed up as ancestral spirits) conducting trials. Okonkwo is very comfortable in this domain, and is highly praised among his fellow people for his strength in wrestling and he always has plentiful yam harvests. Okonkwo is currently happy with his current state, his life is good- but that is doomed to …show more content…
Okonkwo was there when he first experienced the white Christian missionaries. At first the people didn’t know how to react and they took it as a joke. They allowed the foreigners to build churches schools, hospital, seek converts, and even put a new government in place! In Mbanta they gave cursed land to the missionaries thinking that they would fail but soon the Christians would thrive. These goals that the Christians were sent out to fulfill soon become successful, the people of Umuofia don’t know what to believe anymore. Some of the Ibo people buy into the new religion and convert, while others find it abhorrent and rebel against. No one supports the idea of being against Christianity more than Okonkwo, who thinks that the men are all turning into women, that the people are weak and need to alienate the new beliefs and that they need to stand up for what they believe in just like him. Okonkwo was reflecting that he sees the clan “breaking up and falling apart” (Achebe 183). His strong, gritty nature comes out clearly in this struggle, as he fights to keep his previous way of life even when all his peers are giving into the wild idea of the white man’s
Okonkwo had a very negative response to the cultural collision the white men brought to the village, do you know why? In Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, a great man called Okonkwo goes through difficult times as many obstacles come in his path to lasting greatness. When the white men start preaching about Christianity Okonkwo starts to loss his sense of identity because he’s used to people listening to him as he was once one of the great leaders of Ibo and everyone was now listening to the white men. While the men continue to preach about Christianity Okonkwo response is to refuse it, he doesn’t want to be a part of it. His consequences because he refused to changed ended with him losing his life and his son.
Since Okonkwo stood out more than all the other men he was seen as Umuofia's most powerful man. Although Okonkwo is the most powerful man in Umuofia he also has weaknesses. One of those weaknesses is his father, he doesn’t wanna be a weak man and careless like his father. As the white missionaries moved in into their home land, the Igbo people who are unsure of how to react to these traditions either switched to their ways or stayed faithful to their faith. Many people became persuaded of the new religions authorities, however Okonkwo who is an warrior at heart refuses to accept the changes that were taking place in his community.
In Things Fall Apart, when the missionaries first come to Umuofia, Okonkwo is very adamant in resisting their ways. He refuses to conform to them and holds fast to his traditional beliefs. He believes that Christianity is “womanly” and his own practices
The Ibo people do not stand up against the white men, so the Ibo fall for their demands. When Okonkwo makes valiant proclamations advising his people to defeat the missionaries and drive them away, Obierika responds: It is already too late... Our own men and our sons have joined the ranks of the stranger. They have joined his religion and they help to uphold his government.
The Ibo culture in Things Fall Apart began to experience colonization, all after Okonkwo was exiled. He was sent away for seven years for killing a clansman. As soon as Okonkwo had left, Umuofia was greeted by Christian missionaries. They were there to convert the villagers to Christianity, to build churches, schools, and hospitals for them. When Okonkwo was exiled, Nwoye snuck off to be among the Christians. He enjoyed being around them and examined their religious views. But, Okonkwo was not happy about Nwoye’s decisions. Okonkwo chokes him by the neck, and demands Nwoye to tell him where he has been. “I don’t know, he is not my father.” (Achebe 137) Being almost killed by his own father really encouraged Nwoye to disassociate himself from his father completely and to head back home to Umuofia. Nwoye was drawn to Christianity because it made him feel welcomed, rather than when he was apart of his native religion.
Okonkwo knew how to kill a man’s spirit” (Achebe 26). This quote illustrates how high reputation is of great importance in Ibo culture, especially for men. Since women are supposed to have an inferior reputation as opposed to men, being compared to a woman is considered highly offensive. In addition, Okonkwo displays arrogance because he holds such a well-respected rank in society. Given that, the characteristic of being arrogant and pretentious causes him to reject European religion altogether.
This damages Okonkwo's relationship with his son forever, which ruins Nwoye's respect and faith towards the Ibo traditions. Because of this, Nwoye feels like he has had enough and decides to convert to Christianity in protest against the Ibo traditions. Aside from burning Nwoye's honor in following the Ibo ways and traditions, Okonkwo's fierce anger also crushes his own spirit, as it sinks himself down deep into depression. This leaves him completely disappointed, angry, and failed in his son. At this point, lots fall apart within him and his everyday life.
The fact that these missionaries have started to really make an impact was unprecedented by the Ibo people; their continuous misunderstandings of one another contribute to make this situation frustrating to both the Ibo clansmen and the Christians that view their religion as superior. Okonkwo returns back to his home village of Umuofia after his exile to Mbanta, and he arrives to see missionaries have overtaken the village, created a government, and many Umuofians have joined the church. As Okonkwo and his friend Obierika are talking, Obierika says of the missionaries and their impact, “He says that our customs are bad; and our own brothers who have taken up his religion also say that our customs are bad. How do you think we can fight when our own brothers have turned against us?...He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart” (176). The white men and missionaries have been successful in coming in and gaining power. They believe the customs to be “bad”, showing their disregard of Ibo culture, and how their motives for infiltrating Ibo life is based off of selfish ideas- only to gain more followers to their religion. Furthermore, by actually being successful in drawing Umuofians into their religion, they have turned
The arrival of these missionaries makes some of these clan members doubt their own beliefs and practices, so much so that they join in on their enemy’s religion. All of the chaos and destruction that the Europeans cause in the clan becomes overwhelming, ironically leading Okonkwo to kill himself. “Then they came to the tree from which Okonkwo’s body was dangling, and they stopped dead” (207). This is something Okonkwo considered feminine, a sign of weakness. Okonkwo believes that men are meant to be strong leaders, doing all the things that women are incapable of.
The disparity between Okonkwo’s true motivations and his warped motivations lead Okonkwo to behave in ways which shocked other members of Umuofia with his apparent disregard for others, but which made sense to him as he saw weakness and Unoka in alternatives. When Ezeudu, a respected elder in Umuofia, informed Okonkwo that the village Oracle called for the killing of Okonkwo’s adopted son Ikemefuna, he asked Okonkwo not to take part. However, Okonkwo not only accompanied them,
The missionaries that inhabited Umuofia caused many problems for Okonkwo because of the structure they brought with them. Okonkwo is a painfully structured man. If something is not right with his schedule, like when Ojiugo did not make him his diner, he becomes irrational. Okonkwo always has a plan which seems to always have to change. Just when he figured he would have the highest rank he could achieve in his tribe, his gun explodes and kills a fellow clansman so that he has to flee to his motherland for seven years. Okonkwo then devises a
Okonkwo's early success is recognized as the result of hard work, "That was not luck. At the most one could say that his chi or personal god was good" (19). But Okonkwo goes too far. He is harsh and unkind to his family and less successful clansmen, thus undermining his self-made fortune.
Affected by the arrival of the missionaries, the Ibo culture is gathered around town to hear the missionaries speak about their culture, but unlike others “Okonkwo, who only stayed in the hope that it might come to chasing the men out of the village or whipping them” (146). This means that Okonkwo is not paying attention to what the missionaries are saying, but hopes that his people will force them out of their village. This shows that Okonkwo has no interest in their culture and wishes for them to leave. Also proves how Okonkwo is not willing to explore a culture's customs. He ignores this until he realizes how his people are changing in his village. As he realizes,“a sudden fury rose within him and he felt a strong desire to take up his machete, go to the church and wipe out the entire vile and miscreant gang” (152). Okonkwo enraged, wants to grab his machete and go to the church and kill all the British and those who worship their God. This shows Okonkwo’s neglect of Christianity and all its beliefs. He refuses to accept the new customs the British have to offer. Challenging his sense of identity Okonkwo is furious with those who have switched their religion, for example his son, Nwoye. Okonkwo confused and furious of his sons betrayal causes him to think about the future. “He saw himself and his fathers crowding round their ancestral shrine waiting in vain for worship and
When the new religion is brought over by the white men, Okonkwo strongly opposes to it because he felt that its qualities display weakness and would destroy the Ibo culture. He refused to change and stuck to his old ways, but as more and more of his clansmen convert, Okonkwo sees his world start to crumble. “Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer stand as one” (Achebe 176). His clan slowly divides into two clear-cut sides, but the Ibo people didn’t want to fight back the new religion. As a result, Christianity took over everything, from the government, to the judicial system. Feeling powerless, Okonkwo commits his final act of vengeance and kills a messenger, committing suicide soon after. If the Umoufia had tried to fight back Christianity, they wouldn’t have loss so much power this quickly. This reluctance was due to the absence of
Okonkwo is a strong and confident man who has vowed to never be like his father Unoka. His father was lazy, unsuccessful and carried no titles. The relationship between Okonkwo and his father motivated Okonkwo to gain titles and become successful inside the clan. In this sense, Okonkwo has gained many titles, has three wives, and respected by the clan. Okonkwo chose to feel that identity in the clan was most important, and through this he had become a presence in the clan, noticed by the elders. However after the arrival of missionaries, who had come to convert the clans to Christianity, Okonkwo’s view is completely contradicted by the missionaries. Okonkwo had grown accustomed to members of the clan being ranked by certain tiers, while the